My parents are coming into town in July, for the first time in about eight years. And while my annual trips home for Thanksgiving sometimes verge on painful, I usually enjoy having the folks out on my turf. Maybe it's because the home they now live in isn't the same one in which I grew up, so going "home" isn't really going home for me, while having them in Seattle lets me play host and be all grown up (which, at 34, you'd think would be a non-issue, but I guess it's hard to shake the memories of being at the kids' table).
They did a lot of the usual Seattle stuff the last time they came-- Pike Place Market, Woodland Park Zoo, Capitol Hill and the Ave., Wild Ginger, the Spirit of Washington dinner train. The Experience Music Project is new, but even less appealing to them than Swan Lake to an eighth grade boy. I'd like to treat them to something nice, and different.
And so I find myself thinking about The Herbfarm. I'm a foodie, and other foodies rave about the place. I've never been-- it's a special occasion kind of place, and I don't have many special occasions. But for the money, I could fly all three of us to Vegas and see Cirque du Soleil's O at Bellagio with money left over for cab fare. At the end of the day-- and at 5 hours for dinner, that's a long day-- it's just food. You'd almost have to have nine courses of that chocolate cake from The Matrix Reloaded, hand-fed by Famke Janssen to feel justified in signing the check. At what point is food no longer food, but an experience? And is such a thing even possible in Woodinville?
Posted by Peter at May 22, 2003 3:35 PM